


And lo the word of 'duck' was 'quack'

by J_Anthony



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ducks, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, No beta - we die like man shaped beings, South Downs, happy crowley, soft Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Anthony/pseuds/J_Anthony
Summary: Crowley adopts ten ducklings and tries to hide them.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 125





	And lo the word of 'duck' was 'quack'

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little fic I wrote for JoyfulOmens and Bea_The_Cat123 because they wanted some happy and soft Crowley.

Crowley was crouched down in the bushes, trying to hold as still as he could manage. He wasn’t breathing (he didn’t need to) and the only movement was of the yellow slit eyes behind the dark sunglasses. He tried not to radiate any suspicious energy and was failing very hard (just don’t tell him that). From here he could see the duck pond on his left and grass at his right. Just between the vegetation at the edge of the pond he had spotted an abandoned duck nest. He was sitting as still as he could manage for five hours now, waiting for their mother to return and keep the eggs warm, but no one was coming.

In the meantime, Crowley was pondering what would happen if she didn’t return. Should he interfere? He was a demon, he shouldn’t really care about an abandoned nest. But he couldn’t just leave them there, right? Aziraphale liked ducks, he would be devastated if he heard that all the ducklings died! Oh, he would _never_ forgive him if he found out. But he also had an image to maintain. For himself, mainly, and for Aziraphale, obviously. No one else cared anymore, they were retired from their respective head offices and moved away from London.

it took Crowley another thirty minutes to decide. He shimmied out of his jacket as quietly as possible, waited for all the humans to leave, and leaped out of the bushes. He didn’t ran very often, but felt like now was the time. It was more of a clumsy looking speed walk anyway. He threw his jacket over the eggs and scooped the whole nest into his arms before heading back to the cottage he and Aziraphale shared. 

* * *

At home, Crowley Googled everything about ducks. He was quite good at Googling, but that was mostly because he just _assumed_ it would give him the right results when he Googled ‘ducks’. 

He managed to hide the ten eggs in a little incubator stowed away in a cupboard that was more or less hidden in the atrium, covered by the green leaves of his plants. He would check on them every day, but nothing seemed to change. Did it always take this awfully long to hatch eggs? He also didn’t want to risk ruining it with a miracle, but he was bored already. 

* * *

Aziraphale put his hand in between the pages of the book he was reading and sat up. Crowley, who laid horizontally on the couch and with his head in the angels lap, groaned when the hand in his hair held still. 

“Don’t stop,” he practically demanded. 

“I hear something. Don’t you hear that, dear?”

“S’probably nothing. The neighbors or something,” Crowley speculated and hoped that Aziraphale would just continue already. 

“We don’t have neighbors close enough for that.”

Crowley lifted his head from the warm lap when it became clear that Aziraphale wouldn’t continue. The angel had a worried look on his face which made Crowley make an effort to listen to whatever noise he was hearing. When it sounded like a soft ‘quack’, Crowley bolted upright. 

“I, er, I’ll check it out. You wait here.”

He walked out of the room before Aziraphale could object and ducked into the atrium, where the noises got louder. He almost squealed with glee when he opened the cupboard and saw ten little perfect ducklings squeaking about. They seemed to have just hatched. 

“Well, what is it?” He could hear Aziraphale impatient from the other room.

With a quick snap of his fingers he miracled the cupboard to be soundproof. “There was a duck on the lawn,” he called back. 

* * *

There might’ve been a very small miracle to ensure that Crowley got out of bed when Aziraphale left the next morning. Aziraphale left every morning when Crowley was still asleep. He went for a walk, swung by the bakery to get something to nibble on, went in for some gossip with Mrs. Bailey from across the street and whatever else he did. 

“Hullo ducklings,” Crowley practically cooed when he opened the cupboard. “Are you ready to go on your first walk?”

With great care, the demon moved them one by one into a big basket, one that looked oddly similar to the one he delivered the Antichrist in years prior. This time, no crying was heard, only ten little duckling quacking about whatever ducklings quacked about. With the basket safely secured on his arm, Crowley left the atrium and walked into their garden, all the way to the end. He had been thinking last night and decided that the duck pond was too far away and someone might _see_ him. Besides there were other ducks there and who known, they might bully the little ducklings because they had no mother. So he decided to make a little pond at the edge for the garden just for them. 

He planted the basket firmly on the grass and opened it. The ducklings peeked out and quickly decided to jump over the edge into the grass. Crowley waited until they all left the basket before walking towards the pond, turning around to the tiny ducklings and trying to coerce them into following him. 

“This way, little ones. Very good, keep on waddlin’!”

* * *

Crowley felt like a proud parent when the duckies followed him around. Soon enough they established a routine. Whenever Aziraphale was out (he still didn’t know anything about the ten ducks living in the atrium), Crowley and the ducklings also went out to the backyard. He didn’t even need the basket anymore, they just followed him anyway. He just walked in front of them, taking small wiggling steps. 

* * *

“Crowley, what are you doing?” the angel called from upstairs. 

“Just dropped something! Nothing important!” he called back. 

His lips were pushed into a thin, straight line across his face while he peered through his shades and looked at the open cupboard in the atrium. They were all gone and were definitely up to no good, if they took after their parent. He saw something move around the edge of his vision. 

“Do you need any help?”

“No, angel. You just go back to… whatever you’re doing,” he answered quickly. “Quackula, come here this instant!” he hissed to the feathery animal that darted across the atrium.

Crowley decided to close the door to the atrium and left to see if any of the ducklings made it into other parts of the house. That was most likely, because he only saw Quackula running around in there and no other feathery fiends. The kitchen was his first stop, that’s where he heard the crash. 

“You!” he pointed exasperated. “What do you think you’re doing, Sir Quacks-a-lot! Leading your siblings into the kitchen. I knew it was you, it’s always you!” 

It takes him quite a bit of time to round up the five ducklings in the kitchen and bring them into the atrium. Six ducklings were safe in the atrium, which meant that he was still missing four of them. Right when he closed the door of the atrium behind him, Aziraphale came down the stairs. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked a little snappy. 

“Er, well, I finished reshelving the library and was craving some cocoa,” Aziraphale answered and eyed him wearily. “Is something the matter, dear?”

Right behind the angel, a flurry of feathers disappeared behind a corner. “No! no, not at all. What if you go back upstairs to the library to read and I’ll make you some cocoa,” Crowley suggested, he needed more time for someone’s sake. 

“Sure, but no miracles! It just doesn’t taste the same.”

Aziraphale gave him a small peck on his cheek and turned around to go back upstairs. Crowley felt his face grow hot, he still wasn’t really used to the physical touch Aziraphale gave him, much less kisses. It took him a few seconds to recollect himself and walked towards where the duckling disappeared. 

* * *

The ducks were growing up so fast, they were barely ducklings anymore. Crowley got a bit teary eyed when thinking about this (not in front of the ducklings, of course, he couldn’t be seen getting _emotional_ in front of anybody, not even ducks). Crowley just strutted slowly over the grass in circles while being followed, he liked it when they followed him. Sometimes he would just lay in the grass while the ducklings played in the water (or whatever ducks do in the water) and they would nestled themselves between his arms and his sides when they had enough. 

“Crowley?”

Crowley bolted upright from his horizontal position in the grass, being met with a disgruntled ‘quack’ from Quack Sparrow. He fell asleep with the ducks in the grass and hadn’t noticed Aziraphale approaching them. 

“What in heaven's name are you _doing_?”

“Nothin’.”

Aziraphale tutted. “Doesn’t look like nothing, my dear boy. Is that a duck?” 

Crowley tried to string multiple vowels together in a word, but failed miserably. Instead he scrambled on his feet and started to walk away. That only made Aziraphale gasp when all ten ducklings started to follow him. Crowley turned around and gave them a warning glare. 

“Stop doing that!” he hissed. “Quackzilla, I swear to someone…”

“You _named_ them?”

Crowley groaned and threw his hands up in defeat. “Yes! Yes, I named them. What was I supposed to do? _Not_ name them? That would’ve been cruel.”

“Most ducks seem to be quite content without being named.”

“How would you know? You’re not a duck parent.” With those words, Crowley crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

“No, but neither are… You _are_!” Aziraphale’s mouth made a perfect little ‘o’ when he realized what was going on. In the meanwhile, Crowley’s face became a dark shade of red and he spluttered something against it. “Did you adopts a bunch of ducklings?”

“No! I’m a demon, I wouldn’t do such a thing,” Crowley pouted. 

“Yes dear, you’re a true menace,” Aziraphale said while patting him reassuringly on his arm. “The biggest menace of the village, dare I say it. Now, be a dear and invite your new friends over for tea, would you?”

**Author's Note:**

> [Come yell at me on Tumblr!](https://normified.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Year of the Rat: Cheesus Christ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343746) by [J_Anthony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Anthony/pseuds/J_Anthony), [JoyfulOmens (IDontHaveACleverQuip)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IDontHaveACleverQuip/pseuds/JoyfulOmens), [Katieof0z](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katieof0z/pseuds/Katieof0z), [Latter_alice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Latter_alice/pseuds/Latter_alice), [MaddyTeddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddyTeddy/pseuds/MaddyTeddy), [soleo_lion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soleo_lion/pseuds/soleo_lion), [Splashattack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splashattack/pseuds/Splashattack)




End file.
